French architect Paul Andreu will build the new opera house of Peking with an elliptic dome in the middle of a lake, it was announced on August 14th 1999. The Louvre pyramid was built by a Chinese architect but the Chinese have
decided to hire a French one to construct their new opera house in preference to a Briton and a Canadian.
Situated not far from the Forbidden City and near the Ntional Assembly the new building will resemble a gigantic 150 metre-diameter futuristic vault covered with a 37 metre-high titanium roof like the Guggenheim museum of Bilbao with large glass panels.
The building will surely evoke a galactic spaceship which will contain several
music halls and two theatres. Its access will be in the form of a transparent
tunnel under water level.
Building work will start in April 2000 and end in 2002 at a cost of 1,8 billion francs (US $ 300 million) on a site measuring 350 x 150 metres while the neighbouring area will be arranged as a park.
Five projects had been selected in 1998, including those of British architect
Terry Farrell and Carlos Ott from Canada. Born in 1938, Paul Andreu designed the first airport terminal of Roissy in 1965 and developed other terminals there and in Brunei, Djakarta or Cairo. Paul Andreu is presently achieving the construction of the Shanghai air terminal due to be inaugurated next October. Several Chinese teams will be associated to his new project in Peking.
Adrian Darmon
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